Geelong gets two seats at national fintech table
GEELONG will have a voice at national conference Intersekt as part of a push to provide more opportunities for fintech expansion in regional Australia.
Following on from the CEO of FinTech Australia Brad Kitschke visiting Geelong as part of the Digital Innovation Festival in early September, Creative Geelong’s Jennifer Cromarty and Adam Lloyd, from local tech business IT Evolved, will be speaking at Intersekt.
The fintech sector includes financial services software, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, crowd-funding and exchange platforms.
According to Fintech, the sector provides opportunity for growth, and ensuring regional Australia has a voice in the conversation is vital.
“At the Intersekt conference, we want to discuss managing the ecosystem beyond Sydney and Melbourne,” Mr Kitschke said.
“This means we need to think about diversity, inclusion and how we engage with regional Australia.
“After visiting Creative Geelong’s Makers Hub and meeting local fintech specialists, we are interested in telling their story.
The value proposition for a fintech business or start up in regional Australia may be about having a great lifestyle and accessing networks and extra skills online.
“With incredible advances in technology, there is less need to move to a large city and that access to capital investment is an issue for start-ups everywhere.
“Part of getting Geelong representatives to InterSekt is to expose regional talent to investors and help curate conversations to potentially take businesses to the next level.
“This is just the start of the conversation. We will be encouraging our members to visit Geelong and also support Geelong businesses to hot desk when they are in Melbourne at one of our hubs. It’s about a longer-term partnership and conversation,” Kitschke said.
The Annual FinTech Industry Conference will be the largest gathering of Australian FinTech start-ups, scale ups, hubs, accelerators, policymakers, regulators, investors and advisers, devoted to examining, discussing and unlocking the potential of the Australia’s FinTech market.
Intersekt, the annual FinTech Industry Conference, is on October 29-31.